


Abiogenesis

by tortoiseshells



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Becoming An Avenger (no actual Avenging required?), Character Study, Gen, Jewish Wanda Maximoff, Multi, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Vision-centric, canon-typical levels of vaguely scientific jargon, found family/ family of choice themes, light ballet history, loosely canon compliant?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29677101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: Alive, or not? Other, or not? Wanda Maximoff suggests, glancing over his shoulder at his tablet and frowning at the Go match he is playing against Doctor Cho, that perhaps it is not as black and white as all that.“A person is still a person, even after they die,” she says, tugging at the cuffs of her sweater. She must be thinking of her brother. “Human life isn’t bound by being alive.”Or: In which Vision sets out to become less alone, and learns to make coffee, the rudiments of ballet, and about the common commercial airliners flying in and out of Philadelphia in the 70s and 80s along the way. Some of this will be useful, he thinks.
Relationships: (eventually?), Helen Cho & Vision (Marvel), James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Vision, Natasha Romanov & Vision, Steve Rogers & Vision, Tony Stark & Vision, Vision & Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff & Vision, Wanda Maximoff/Vision, background Natasha Romanoff/Maria Hill, background Sam Wilson/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Abiogenesis

Vision thinks about many things, but the thing that feels like an error in his code, an untightened bolt, a loose wire between nodes is this: perhaps Ultron, in his pain and his rage, will always be more human than him. More fallible, certainly, though he is sure he does not desire that; understanding himself to be reliable, and the New Avengers around him understanding him to be reliable (if, perhaps, not much else about him), fits neatly into his list of things that he enjoys.

(an incomplete sampling of that list, assembled less-than-methodically based on the recommendations of his teammates as well as their actions: the way Agent Romanoff sometimes hums Prokofiev, at times and in no pattern that he can discern; the scents of citrus and lavender; the chess matches he plays against Colonel Rhodes, on the strict understanding he cannot consult the internet; Louis Armstrong and his compatriots; the way the world lightens even before the sun rises; the flicker of relief from Wanda Maximoff when he follows a conversational slip into Sokovian.)

He and Ultron were made of such similar components; he is Ultron, in some ways. He is supposed to defend the Earth and humanity, and Vision supposes that comes, in some inscrutable way, from Ultron. He trusted the Maximoffs from the first, as Ultron had before him. Even the vibranium – they are quite literally composed of the same materials.

And yet, they diverge. He is of J.A.R.V.I.S., as well as the Mind Stone, as well as the input of many others. He does not envy Ultron’s rage, so strongly felt, nor does he yet recognize it within himself. What point is there to anger? Or other negative emotions which only prompt violence and discord? The things which are, _are_. Positive outcomes, he thinks, do not come from such dangerous impulses. Vision knows what he was created for, and does not resent this deep-seated feeling that the world possesses wonders; that the world has much wrong with it, but it still must be saved.

Vision only wishes – 

Wishes he did not feel so alone. He wants to be accepted as part of the world; maybe that means he wishes to be human.

* * *

At the end of the spring, there is an unexpected visit from Mr. Stark, who still jumps a little when Vision calls him that, like he is expecting something else. Vision goes to speak with him. Mr. Stark is responsible for the creation of both Ultron and himself. Mr. Stark addressed J.A.R.V.I.S. like a friend. 

But Mr. Stark does not have a clear answer.

“Ultron was a tin can omnicidal maniac,” he says dismissively, waving a screwdriver like a baton. Vision restrains the part of himself that used to tell Mr. Stark to avoid gesturing with sharp objects around others. “You’re not.”

He pauses, and looks closer at Vision. “You’re not?” he amends, voice pitching up at the end. “Are you feeling, y’know, like one-upping the Chicxulub Crater? Show some crocodiles what their granddaddies missed?”

“No,” Vision says calmly. There’s something like an itch – as Wanda Maximoff described it, cursing mosquitos in Sokovian, Russian, German and English – at the back of his throat. A manifestation of irritation? He logs it to investigate later.

“Good,” Mr. Stark replies, tapping the same screwdriver against the workbench, “Glad you’re not going Lore on me.”

Vision, as he has become accustomed to in conversation with the other Avengers, silently looks up ‘Lore’ while Mr. Stark discourses on androids and artificial intelligence in the television serial _Star Trek_. He’s remembering some of it wrong, but Vision doesn’t correct him. His creator had previously told him that _“no one likes a know-it-all.”_

(When he had asked the other Avengers, who all had intellect and insight he respected, the response to Mr. Stark’s words had been almost unanimous incredulity. Agent Romanoff had blinked several more times than usual, and Colonel Rhodes had snorted into his coffee, ruining the Sunday crossword.)

Eventually, Mr. Stark loops back around to the original question. He dismisses quickly issues of appearance ( _a very expensive tin can, I was drawing more realistic people when I was four, Vision_ ) and intelligence ( _Ultron was smarter than the average human, and you’re sharper than he is, isn’t that enough?_ ). It’s the question of behavior that forces his normally loquacious creator (progenitor? Certainly not a father.) to a stuttering halt.

“I do not think I fully understand what it is to be human. To act human,” Vision says, quietly. The words sting in a non-physical way: he is not unhappy with himself, but he is the only one of his kind. He is modelled on humans, and humans are social creatures. They are not supposed to be alone.

“He didn’t understand, either. Didn’t want to, really. And, honestly, Vision,” Mr. Stark replies, “Ultron wasn’t trying to act like a human. I’m sure he’d have struggled just as much with the coffee-maker and bathroom rules.”

Vision nods. He is supposed to acknowledge the speech of his friends, and, even though Mr. Stark was not exactly helpful, he did advise him. He returns to the common room to read, recalling over and over what Mr. Stark had said. He, Vision, looked human, after a fashion. He possessed an intellect that allowed him to converse and interact with the human world. And human behavior, Mr. Stark had off-handedly observed (and hundreds of sociologists and anthropologists confirmed, when he researched the idea later), was learned. 

He pauses in the middle of Jemison's _The Fifth Season_.

He’s never touched the coffee-maker.

* * *

Some days later, he’s taken advantage of the pre-dawn calm to occupy the kitchen, having set out a task for himself: he has never touched the coffee-maker, and cannot actually benefit from _drinking_ coffee – possessing neither a digestive tract nor a liver, and since he need not sleep he has no need of caffeine – still, his teammates enjoy the substance, and he doesn’t actively dislike the smell of some roasts. 

The day previous, he had taken care to grind beans in advance, so as not to wake the lightest of the team’s sleepers; now he has pulled out said coffee-maker as well as the French press, processed the manual of the former, and pulled up as much useful information as can be found online. Proportions set, water boiled, appropriate buttons pushed. The scent creeps out through the kitchen much like – like morning mist off the Hudson River. Most of his compatriots describe the scent of coffee by its effects: _bracing_ , from Captain Rogers; _weak-ass_ , from Agent Romanoff; _game-time_ , from Mr. Wilson; _I was looking for the goddamn Charles River, whaddya put in here, battery acid?_ , from Mr. Stark. These descriptors all applied to the same batch from Colonel Rhodes, which perhaps explained Mr. Stark’s acidic words.

Coffee has no effect on him, so he’s left with other words: _bitter_ , maybe, in the way that too-strong citrus might be called bitter. _Burned_ , but that is the fault of the roast – he hopes. Maybe there is something _sweet_ to it – sweet like processed sugar, heated, he clarifies for himself.

A complication: he has no way of gauging how successful he has been. Each batch, in the pot and in the press, is heated to a temperature in line with what he had previously observed (though, of course, the press is losing heat more quickly, lacking the heating element of the machine); the color looks the same, to within a shade or two (his two batches are lighter, and so he suspects his teammates tend to brew theirs stronger than is generally recommended, which – well. It is in line with what he would expect). He tries pouring himself a mug, taking care to pick one that none of his compatriots favor, and gingerly adds cream, and then sugar. It cools, and certainly smells sweeter. Vision sets it on the counter before him, watching the steam curl in vague arabesques towards the ceiling, ghostly against the darkness beyond the windows. He doesn’t need it to contemplate, but now that it’s here – 

It’s nice, he thinks. Solitary, but a little less so. He lets the spoon clink against the sides of the mug, creating a miniature whirlpool that eventually spins itself out, then he reverses direction, and does it again. Corryvreckan (his mind pulls up) it is not, and this has nothing to do with currents and the shape of the sea-bed, but a wonderful thing is still wonderful to observe on a different scale, and, after all, he has never been to Scotland. Not as himself, though J.A.R.V.I.S., he recalls, had. Intelligence does not indicate such a trip may be likely in the foreseeable future.

Knuckles tap against the wall, and Vision looks up to see Captain Rogers and Mr. Wilson, pajama-clad and more than a little bleary. He hadn’t heard their door.

“Vision,” says Captain Rogers, looking about the kitchen with a look of polite confusion, taking in the two brewed batches of coffee, the cream and sugar, the single cup on the counter. “Just you?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers,” he replies.

Behind his team leader, Mr. Wilson shakes his head, but wanders into the kitchen as well. “You made coffee?”

“I tried. I cannot judge how successful I was.”

Rogers and Wilson share what can best be described as ‘a speaking glance’ – looking at each other, the time, him, and the two nearly-full coffee pots. Civil twilight is thirty-six minutes away, and sunrise a further thirty-five minutes beyond that. He ought to have timed it better, he thinks, either deeper in the night or closer to morning. As is, there is an awkward period of time between now and Rogers’ accustomed early-morning run, too short for meaningful rest, and too long to simply head off out the door. Captain Rogers arrives at his conclusion, telegraphing his intentions to his partner without the aid of their communications network – something he notices, with a – a _twinge_ , he supposes, like a static shock. A twinge of envy. Envy of the easiness, the comfortable understanding.

How marvelous it must feel, he thinks, to understand and be understood in that way.

Captain Rogers gestures at the pot. “Do you want an opinion?”

Does he? In the service of practicality, _yes_ ; he does feel some uncertainty. He has no idea if he has carried out the task to satisfaction, and in his short life, he’s grown to dislike disappointing those around him who he respects. Still. He nods _yes_ , and watches Captain Rogers fetch down the “Early Bird Gets the Worm” mug Wilson favors, and (with a dry laugh) one emblazoned with “World’s Greatest Grandpa” – which was a gift from Agent Romanoff. Both men take their coffee black, and Rogers takes the two mugs to the table, kissing Mr. Wilson’s left temple as he hands off the mug.

“ _Don’t_ think this means I’m going running this morning,” Mr. Wilson says, with a yawn.

Captain Rogers gestures to another chair. “Join us, will ya?”

He does, taking his cooling mug, perfectly white and bereft of any identifying marks, to the table with him. His teammates slouch admirably, but he doesn’t quite feel right doing the same. Vision rattles the spoon around his coffee again.

“First time?” asks Mr. Wilson, gesturing with his mug.

“Yes.”

“Not bad,” he says, “Hot, and doesn’t eat a hole in your stomach, which is better than you can say for whatever Romanoff brews up.”

(This was a diplomatic way of phrasing it; Mr. Stark, with his gift for understatement, had labelled Agent Romanoff’s coffee _the unholy offspring of used motor oil and a Soviet-fucking-chemical-weapon_. If his memory was correct, which it was.)

Captain Rogers nodded, before gesturing across the table to Vision’s mug, where the miniature Moskstraumen is petering itself out. Mr. Wilson’s compliment feels warmer than the mug, and since he is pleased he smiles.

“Why coffee?” asks Captain Rogers.

 _Why not?_ Though, that has an obvious answer – the unavoidable differences between _human_ , and, well – _synthetic human_. His smile droops at the corners, but he does not feel as though he has made a misstep. They are his compatriots; he is supposed to concern himself with their welfare, as they in turn will do for him. “It was a task I had never done before, and I wished to try. I know it does not benefit me, but Colonel Rhodes, Agent Romanoff, and Miss Maximoff, as well as yourselves, enjoy it, or at times find it necessary.”

“It’ll be useful?”

“I believe so. There are a number of skills that are of no help to the practitioner. Surgeons usually cannot operate on themselves; you, Mr. Wilson –”

“Sam,” Mr. Wilson insists.

“– have learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but cannot use it to help yourself.” 

Sam Wilson accepts that with a shrug, chuckling into his coffee – and since Sam Wilson is laughing, so is Captain Rogers. The two men kick back in their chairs, and make small conversation, canvassing their respective homes in New York City (since he came to consciousness in Manhattan, Wilson and Rogers agree that he’s one of them, though they claimed their boroughs’ privileges of disdain for that part of the city), and a new film series at the Museum of Modern Art highlighting the history of Technicolor, which leads both of his teammates to recommend those films they deemed essential.

He could look up the plots, but both insist it is the experience of the thing. This does make him happy, and so he smiles again.

* * *

Vision understands he owes his existence to Dr. Helen Cho in a very literal way, and yet – like the rest of his web of relations – she is not mother. _Progenitor_ , perhaps.

There are more complications.

She did not make him of her own free will, and she very nearly paid for the creation of his life with her own. While she was recuperating, unable to use her own invention because he had unintentionally destroyed it, Vision fretted over her well-being, vastly uncomfortable with the idea that anyone would have suffered because of him. That is not what he was _made_ for.

He had raised his concerns with Mr. Stark, who had replied with two things: one, that Hallmark didn’t make a Get Well Soon card that exactly covered (and Vision quotes) _Sorry the omnicidal murderbot that brainwashed you into making me in order to destroy the world nearly killed you!_ And the other, that he ought to consult with Miss Potts.

His second suggestion was far more useful than the first. Miss Potts, like Mr. Stark, looked a little rattled when he addressed her, but she at least advised him on flowers and the writing of a card that expressed his gratitude and regrets, closing with an acknowledgment that he had been the indirect cause of her suffering, and that he would respect any wishes she had regarding him keeping his distance. An email would have been faster, but a card seemed more sincere. Vision _wanted_ to be seen as sincere.

Doctor Cho replied with a message of her own, thanking him for his concern and his courtesy, and that she would actually welcome conversation with him when she escaped the hospital; she anticipated travelling to the Facility to help set up their medical quarters. Would he be amenable to meeting then?

He was.

They have been corresponding, since then. Doctor Helen Cho is not his mother, but she is – she is _proud_ of him, and her role in his creation. Without self-pride, Vision thinks she ought to be; he is a marvel of technological advancement, and she and her laboratory ought to be recognized for the achievement. _An advanced robot_ , say many news outlets, unkindly – _a synthetic human_ , Doctor Cho insists. Vision feels – something – when she always asks permission to study him, creating complex diagrams of circuits and vibranium sinews. He has no blood and no heart. Even if his appearance were not distinctly _other_ , his internal works would betray him.

“All life is made, in one way or another,” she observes, on a flying visit to the Avengers facility. They are watching the sunset from the roof, the conversation having long since slipped back into Korean.

(He thinks it is only polite; Doctor Cho is jet-lagged and running on a constant stream of coffee, and she is here as a favor to them. She tells Vision that he still sounds posh in Korean, and it makes her laugh – not unkindly, he thinks. It sounds to him like the laugh he makes when he discovers something new and worth wondering at: the vast inky blackness of the Atlantic beneath the Quinjet, when he was only a few hours old, or the delicate unfurling of day-lilies.) 

“And life on Earth,” she continues, “– or life in the Universe more broadly, if you subscribe to the theory of panspermia and its variants – came from nothing. And then – abiogenesis. Life. Simple microorganisms. More complex microorganisms. So on through the years.”

Vision considers this. He is inorganic; he shares no ancestor with Doctor Cho, or with Tony Stark, or any of his teammates. But – _life_? Does he consider himself alive? Do the others? The government of the United States? The United Nations? He does not much wonder why philosophy and ethics, broadly construed, have taken up so much of human thought.

“I am a different form of life, then?” he tries.

Doctor Cho nods. “This isn’t my area of expertise, you understand. My whole life has been human genetics; up until two months ago, I had never truly anticipated this. You, Vision. I was one when Chaylakhyan, Veprencev, Sviridova, and Nikitin cloned a mouse named Masha; eleven when Campbell, Wilmut, and the Roslin Institute cloned Dolly – I thought artificial human cloning would be the wild dream of my lifetime. But – yes. You are.”

He thinks he likes this, though he has his reservations. Alive, or not? Other, or not? Wanda Maximoff suggests, glancing over his shoulder at his tablet and frowning at the Go match he is playing against Doctor Cho, that perhaps it is not as black and white as all that.

“A person is still a person, even after they die,” she says, tugging at the cuffs of her sweater. She must be thinking of her brother. “Human life isn’t bound by being alive.”

Vision thanks her for that, and the cup of peppermint tea she brings him. He cannot drink it, but they both know he likes the scent.

* * *

In time, Vision lays claim to a mug that must have once belonged to Mr. Stark – chipped and well-stained, bearing the injunction “Byte me!” and a simplistic floppy disk. He likes the wordplay, he decides, though he cannot imagine ever telling anyone to ‘bite him’ as a means of expressing dismissal and disdain, and the joke lands too close to the question at the center of his existence: he has not yet wholly reconciled the feeling that he wants to be human, while still very aware that his origin and his worth lie in being something else.

But it is his, the Avengers accept it as his, and so it stays on the bottom shelf, in the midst of the other novelty mugs. Even when he chooses not to fill it, seeing it there does make him happy.

This morning – again, far in advance of sunrise – he is in the kitchen. _Puttering_ , Mr. Stark says, though he knows Mr. Stark is applying the word to him just as J.A.R.V.I.S. had applied it to his own creator in the past. He feels something about that, though he is not sure what. And the descriptor is not wholly correct; he _is_ moving with purpose. He cannot occupy his usual seat in the lounge, because Wanda Maximoff has finally fallen asleep after watching the serial _M*A*S*H_ for six hours and twelve minutes, and he is unwilling to wake her. Therefore, he is brewing tea – teaching himself scents cup by cup.

 _Smoky_ , he thinks of this most recent attempt, though more like Mr. Stark’s preferred scotch than pancakes left in the pan too long. Not unpleasant, but unexpected. Vision wrinkles his nose, mostly-unconsciously. Something like the pine groves not far from the Facility.

He makes a note of it for himself: Something to come back to with someone else, who can tell him how correct the label of the packaging is.

Vision disposes of the leaves and pours the cup down the drain, steps into the lounge to check that Wanda Maximoff has not tossed the quilt off in her sleep, and moves on. Sunrise is forty-seven minutes away – but he hears something, drifting through the corridors, coming from the direction of the gyms.

It is Agent Romanoff.

She doesn’t turn to acknowledge him, which surprises him, until he recalls that he had reduced his density to nothing, to make no sound to disturb the others; she is not ignoring him consciously. Vision wonders whether he had better announce himself, or simply move on. Agent Romanoff has her own reasons for sleepless nights, and keeps her own counsel.

While he hesitates, he observes. Agent Romanoff is not dressed as she habitually is for training; he does not recognize the gear, but he identifies it as that which is favored by ballet dancers after consulting the internet. This is corroborated by the music he hears: Prokofiev, again. Instead of coming through the Facility’s speaker system, she has elected to play the music through an old, fairly decrepit stereo, which crackles and fizzes, obscuring the trill of a flute, or the highest notes of oboe and violin. _Cinderella_ , the internet volunteers as soon as he reaches for identification, _Sergei Prokofiev. Composition interrupted by the Second World War, and Prokofiev’s own work on the opera War and Peace._

It strikes him as a little odd, and still very human, that the composition of an opera could not be halted by The Great Patriotic War, that Prokofiev could still have been sitting at a piano somewhere in the Caucasus, and then in Almaty, while that city’s streets bustled with refugees and shifted industries, while millions were starving in Leningrad.

Perhaps it reminds her of home, he thinks: Natalia Alianovna Romanoff was born in Stalingrad, if the HYDRA files she revealed to the world in 2014 are to be believed; now, Stalingrad is Volgograd, and Natalia Alianovna Romanoff is Natasha Romanoff, and though she is miles from the base of the statue Родина-мать зовёт! and the life she had led there, she carries pointe-shoes and rosin.

“They’re opening the fall season with _Swan Lake_ , at the Lincoln Center,” says Agent Romanoff, conversationally, as though she has not hooked her ankle over the railing (which he now understands to be a barre) and is engaging in stretching herself nearly parallel to it. Vision is reasonably certain he could not imitate her posture. “It’d be a better demonstration of ballet than this.”

She finishes the stretch, and repeats it, on the other side of her body. Vision realizes that, while he has stayed silent, the dark windows on the other side of the room are acting as mirrors.

“I heard the music,” he says, thinking he ought to explain his presence to her.

Agent Romanoff does not respond, but continues what he is increasingly sure is a well-honed routine of stretches and exercise, while the tinny stereo hisses on.

He is _envious_ , Vision thinks, parsing through his feelings at this juncture; Agent Romanoff moves with as much confidence as he possesses only for that which seems most immutable, within the reality he exists: Newton’s laws, maybe. And that is something he envies – information does not neatly translate into certainty; the history of ballet and all the instructions he can pull up for himself has not made him any more capable of a grande jeté or even (he grimaces to himself) a plié.

He has not danced at all in the three months since his creation, he has not even truly thought of it: Mr. Stark, when he blows through the complex as suddenly as a summer downburst, tends to listen to the kind of music which does not lend itself to dance, contenting himself to nod his head in time with the beat; Sam Wilson and Captain Rogers, at times, will dance with each other while preparing dinner, trading off positions of leader and follower – but that is an exercise for themselves alone, an expression of their partnership, their trust; Colonel Rhodes, who is fifty years younger than Rogers, and ten years older than Wilson, says that dancing is a younger man’s game; and Wanda Maximoff has been in mourning for her brother for nearly as long as he has existed, and even beyond the obligations of her faith, Vision thinks, she has not had the heart for it.

“When did you learn?” he asks, after this period of contemplation.

“As a girl.” Her response is both vague and (as far as he is aware) accurate. Inference: this was a thing she had learned, or been taught, in the Red Room. That does not seem comforting.

He says as much, and Agent Romanoff confirms it with a nod.

“Why do you continue?”

“I enjoy it.”

In almost any other person, the curtness of her answers would indicate disinterest; it still may, but Agent Romanoff has never used two words when one would suffice, and never one word if she may communicate without it. Too, Wanda Maximoff says that Agent Romanoff does not understand him, does not wholly trust him. Whether Wanda Maximoff has come by this information by her powers, or whether their team leader has said it to her in confidence, in one of the half-Russian, half-Sokovian muttered conversations they have shared, he could not say for sure.

(A _twinge_ again, that Wanda Maximoff has become, or has always been, the closest thing he has to a friend among his teammates. He has trusted Wanda Maximoff from the first, he thinks, and sat up with her though his second night. Her brother’s body had to be watched over, and though Vision was gentile, he needed no sleep – and the rest of their family was long dead.)

“It helped?”

“No,” she says, bending neatly at the waist to rest the heels of her hands on the tops of her feet, with an exhale that might have been pained in another. “But I decided it would.”

“How? Why?”

Agent Romanoff gives him a tight smile that Captain Rogers sometimes describes as _cat-like_ , and says no more.

Later, though –

“The Bolshoi company performed on the steps of the Reichstag in 1945, while it was still smoldering,” she says, dropping into the chair across from his in the lounge and eying the state of the chess board between them. He had been playing with Colonel Rhodes, and it takes him a few moments to grasp the conversational line that Agent Romanoff is dangling.

“Yes,” he replies, uncertainly. This is one of those moments where he knows something but does not actually know it; yes, because if information exists online, he knows it – but in an abstract, meaningless way.

“And in 1961,” she continues, “Rudolf Nureyev defected, as many did. The first role he danced in the West was Prince Désiré, in _The Sleeping Beauty_. Tchaikovsky.” 

Vision nods. 

“We weren’t taught ballet because of these things. We were taught ballet because it taught us to accept pain, to acquiesce to being an object, a pretty set of limbs. Playing roles. Being _flexible_.” 

She languidly extends an arm towards him, mirroring a gesture he has seen many a ballerina execute in filmed performances, in the days since his last conversation with her – but Natasha Romanoff curls her fingers toward her palm and looks at him in such a way that (even though no one has looked at _him_ like that before) he has no doubt of what _flexible_ means.

Vision feels his face heating up, and suspects if he were human, he might be blushing.

“Transformation was always a tool – we could be anyone, and so we were no one. Nothing.”

( _Inhuman_ , she does not say, but Vision infers it.)

“I wasn’t made to choose, but I _chose_. Ballet could mean something else, so it did. I transformed.” 

_Made. Transformation._

He knows these concepts: he was made. _Manufactured_. The industrial connotations seem corrosive of humanity – Natalia Alianovna Romanoff had something stripped from her; Vision – created in the Cradle from stolen vibranium and an Infinity Stone and the collective fears and dreams of Cho, Ultron, Stark, Banner, and Thor – has never had it, has to reach for it. 

And yet: Vision thinks of the lush swoop of the Grand Waltz, and the look of concentration, of freedom on his teammate’s face as she danced; the cold pride that she radiated as she conjured up an image of the Bolshoi company dancing on the grave of the Third Reich; the reverence with which she spoke of Nureyev, choosing a new life for himself, one that included both Erik Bruhn and the familiar roles he had danced to acclaim with the Kirov Ballet. _Create your own meaning_ , says Natasha Romanoff, in her actions. Malleability – _change_ – is its own kind of survival, its own compositional humanity.

There is the sound of a door, down the hall, and both he and Agent Romanoff hear and recognize Wanda Maximoff’s hesitant tread. She is not surprised to see them, but it is nearly impossible to startle a telepath, after all.

Agent Romanoff gives him a look he doesn’t quite understand, before asking: “Nightmare?”

Wanda nods. Vision heads to the kitchen to make peppermint tea; behind him, he can hear the rustle of blankets, the hum of the television coming to life, Agent Romanoff quietly talking in Sokovian, though there is no answer.

* * *

Vision takes some time to consider Natasha Romanoff’s words and their implication – time being the thing he seems to have to spare, awake through most nights. In an inescapably literal way, he _was_ made – more _manufactured_ than made, even, since humans (at least in the American vernacular) could be said to be _made_.

(Natasha Romanoff’s heated look and come-hither gesture had certainly solidified that connection in his mind, however _manufactured_ for effect it might have been. She flirts with everyone, even, it seems, _him_.)

(That’s … all right, isn’t it? If he is a part of everyone, is just like everyone?)

But, in the Facility, who has not been made? By education, by military training, by medical experimentation, by grief: Vision thinks they all exist on some spectrum, with himself at a distant edge, but his compatriots are not so far away from himself, or each other. Perhaps Wanda may be the closest; though she categorically refuses to speak of what she and her late brother were subjected to in Baron von Strucker’s laboratory, the Mind Stone is the making of both of them. It is why he is more than a directive and admittedly engaging banter, and why Wanda can change the world to suit herself.

Natasha Romanoff was made by the Red Room, and has remade herself. Steven Rogers, by science, by grief. Colonel Rhodes, by years of education and military service. Sam Wilson, by his military service and his care and his own grief. None of them are who they were – sometimes by chance, sometimes by choice. Not all of those choices were their own; not all of those choices were good. 

He can choose. He has chosen the Avengers, he has chosen to learn how to brew coffee and perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, to allow Natasha Romanoff to teach him the five basic positions of ballet and to allow Maria Hill to gently tease him about it, when she emerges from Natasha’s room to find them in one of the gyms. He has chosen to play chess with Colonel Rhodes, to lose himself on expeditions to New York City with Steven Rogers and Sam Wilson. He chose his name, after a fashion; _Vision_ made as much sense to him as any other. He chooses to use what he was created with for _good_ , as best he understands it. 

Vision can walk through walls, though this is not without its complications. He may change himself so that bullets flatten against his skin harmlessly. He sees possibilities and consequences that his teammates cannot.

He can _fly_ – 

* * *

Having established how fast he can fly, one of the trials Captain Rogers and Natasha Romanoff have set for him is this: _how high?_ Vision does not need to breathe; it’s entirely possible he may sail straight through the thermosphere and exosphere into space itself. This, he thinks, would be extraordinary – and how lucky he is, that something which was so difficult for so long should have been the first thing he was capable of! But – _oh_. There’s an unpleasant thing like a memory that surfaces, here: _the icing problem_ , a fall from a great height, a spike of terror that isn’t his – not really.

(How odd, at times, to be able to speak of past lives with alternating certainty and ambiguity! He is not J.A.R.V.I.S., but – isn’t he? Not J.A.R.V.I.S. himself, nor his son, nor any other kind of human relation, but Vision _has_ inherited from him.)

It is not his problem; he knows how he flies. And yet – 

Some nights, after he has left his room, or left Wanda dreaming on the couch while _The Andy Griffith Show_ or _The Ghost and Mrs. Muir_ or _McHale’s Navy_ or any one of dozens of reruns, he heads out to the roof to stare at the stars. Perhaps it is one of the nights she’s been watching _M*A*S*H_ again, or _Hogan’s Heroes_ , because there’s a line from some long-ago pilot echoing in his thoughts: _six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life_ ...

This is fear, isn’t it? Not fear for others; he understands that human life is fragile, and easily destroyed, and he knows to fear on others’ behalf. Vision thinks he might have looked the miles down to the Earth and – and felt _fear_. He knows how he flies, he knows exactly how durable vibranium is. How durable he is. But he looked down the miles to the Earth and thought – _Oh_. And – _What if?_ And – _I do not want to fall_.

Can he die? He considers himself alive, and so it follows that there will be an end. That is life. 

(Vision doesn’t want to die; he is six months old and has only just seen snow for the first time, has only just been taught by Sam Wilson to make hot chocolate like his late partner’s widow does, with cinnamon and cayenne and dark unsweetened chocolate – he cannot taste it, but it makes the kitchen smell glorious, and coaxes his teammates out of their rooms. Steven Rogers has begun to teach him to dance, as he himself learned as a young man eighty years ago. He likes these things. He doesn’t like this feeling that they may be transient; the feeling that might be fear.)

His teammates are different from him. They have people they may lose, or have lost; they may die. They know fear. 

_Wanda_ knows fear, but she is sleeping and he is reluctant to deprive her of any rest, not when it has been over six months since her brother’s death, and though she speaks regularly with therapists and takes the medication that has been prescribed for her, and picks out Reinhardt’s “Nuages” on her guitar, there are still so many nights like this one. No. He thinks this feeling may be fear, and he will puzzle it out on his own. At least, until morning, when the rest of his team-mates wake.

Or so he assumes, before he hears Colonel Rhodes’s regular, even footfalls. “Nice view, isn’t it? Not exactly Colorado Springs, but,” Colonel Rhodes gives one of his dry half-laughs, equal part amusement and punctuation, “definitely better than home in Philly.”

Vision greets his teammate politely, moving down the bench to make space. Colonel Rhodes prefers to stand, he knows, but – _courtesy_. “I have never been to either of those places, but I assume the light pollution from the Philadelphia metropolitan area would obscure much of the night sky.”

“Yeah. Not much reason to look up at night.”

To his surprise, Colonel Rhodes sits, though he keeps his hands stuffed in his jacket-pockets. It is November, after all, and his teammate’s breath shows in half-visible grey clouds.

“During the day, though,” Colonel Rhodes continues, “Man. Gray’s Ferry was just about as close to the airport as it was City Hall.”

“The skies were busy, then?”

“Lot of 747s, DC-10s, L-1011s, some F28 Fellowships. I kept a log as a kid.”

“You wished to be a pilot from an early age?”

Rhodes nods, looking up at the sky, and Vision follows his cue: to the south, Orion the Hunter is just visible over the horizon; Cetus, too, is visible, though slightly further into the heavens. Nothing about the arrangement of Mira and Deneb Algenubi (once called Aoul al Naamat by Muhammad al-Akhṣāṣī al-Muwaqqit, around 1650, though if Vision had been cataloguing the stars from where he stood in New York at any point before 1900, he would not have known that) and Menkar and Diphda and others suggests “sea-monster” or even “whale” to him. He is told that elsewhere in the world humans have drawn different pictures given these same points: the Tucano people (says Wikipedia, which is perhaps not the most trustworthy of sources) of the Amazon see instead a jaguar, padding across the night sky. It is all in the imagination, he supposes.

“It seemed like the best way to get anywhere,” Rhodes says, with another dry half-laugh, “I got to Colorado Springs by flying – and a lot of sleepless nights over my calc book. And eventually – ”

“Flying yourself.”

“Right.”

His teammate produces a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, hesitating until Vision replies to his questioning look – no, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t breathe, after all.

And, when he is completely honest with himself, after sitting out on the roof one hot sleepless night with Wanda, talking over the stars and cosmology and curiosity – during which Agent Romanoff had loped out of the shadows, and produced Belomorkanals from her own pockets, which she swore would drive off mosquitos and other biting insects – he doesn’t mind the scent, so much. It’s not a good habit for his friends. The scent is beginning to feel like home.

“Souvenir of USAFA,” Rhodes says. 

Vision assumes he’s referring to his gleaming lighter as well as the habit itself; both make sense to him. He nods. 

Rhodes exhales, and grimaces. They must be coming to the point: why Steven Rogers had traded speaking glances with Natasha Romanoff after Vision returned from the exosphere to the Facility, his first steps on the Earth afterwards shaking. Why Sam Wilson and Colonel Rhodes, the most experienced flyers, had been watching him though dinner, and Wanda had allowed him to choose a documentary and sat closer than usual on the couch. They had taken the measure of his uncertain gait, his uncharacteristic silence, the way he held Wanda’s hand for his own comfort, not hers.

He _was_ afraid, for the first time, and his teammates saw it.

“I wasn’t scared, the first time I went up, or even the first time I took the War Machine suit out for a spin. I knew what I was doing, told myself I knew my machine, knew all the risks. And – yeah. Being in a cockpit that I knew inside-out, flying supersonic and with the kind of firepower that Howard Stark had only dreamed of, with a chute and the whole damn Air Force at my back? I felt _powerful_. Untouchable. A hell of a change for a nerdy Black kid from Frank Rizzo’s South Philly. You know when I felt afraid in the air?”

If he were human, he is sure his mouth would feel dry – being seen in such a way, being told something that feels _heavy_ , and precious from confidence. But he’s not, it doesn’t, and still the apprehension is real. “When?”

“The first time I flew a Jenny,” Colonel Rhodes says, with a wry smile, “Biplane, Curtiss JN-4. Top speed of 75 miles an hour, flight ceiling of 6,500 feet. No guns. US government bought them to train pilots in World War One, then dumped them on the market after 1918; they’re antiques now, but still able to fly. I was just some hotshot kid, fresh out of USAFA and sailing through MIT, when I had a chance to go up in one – I always wanted to fly a Nieuport, just like Eugene Bullard, but those are kind of rare here, and a Jenny was the next best thing when it came up on offer. 

“I was thinking, _Sure, how hard can it be?_ There were guys dancing the Charleston on the wings of these things in the Twenties. But I got in and got up there and thought – _Shit_. Open cockpit, bumpy ride, an engine that was old when the US Army Air Corps became the US Air Force. This kind of machine killed Bessie Coleman. And there I was, maybe a thousand feet above Western Massachusetts, no idea what I’d gotten myself into, only theoretically understanding how this plane worked – and with Tony Stark mouthing off in the backseat.”

Vision says something about being relieved that he survived, but Colonel Rhodes flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette and shakes his head. 

“I’m glad I survived, too, though Tony wouldn’t let me live it down for years. And that’s not the point. Getting freaked out by being up there isn’t rational, but every pilot I’ve ever met has a story about suddenly realizing how far it is to fall, how goddamn lucky they were that a rocket missed. Hundreds, if not thousands of hours in training, in studying our machines, in learning to breathe in those little cockpits, Vision – and every goddamn one of us feels it, at some point. It’s natural. You’re not alone.”

 _But I’m not natural_ , Vision thinks, with a mutinous flash of ingratitude and a stubborn sense of his own inadequacy – and then, watching Rhodes stamp out the butt, and carefully lighting himself another, Vision has an equally strong pang of appreciation and warm care. Fear is irrational. He’s responding to behavior, to his new experiences, as his teammates do. 

_As people do_. They see it. Him.

“Thank you, Colonel Rhodes,” Vision says.

“You can drop the rank, you know.”

“It – You earned it.”

“Yeah,” replies Rhodes, with a wry smile, “But this isn’t the Air Force, and I’m not your boss.”

James Rhodes does not say what he is to Vision, but Vision thinks it might be something better than _colleague_. Something not quite _friend_ , but close.

* * *

Vision thinks fall is long gone before it officially dies away at the solstice: the deciduous trees slipping into slumber, leaving needly conifers the only splashes of green in the woods; the cold winds from the north and west fetching down frost and snow; the sun that retreats day by day; the peculiar gratitude he feels when Wanda, in a whirl of impatience and stubbornness and sad longing for a home she no longer possessed, obtained a menorah and celebrated Hanukkah in the long, dark early-December evenings. It is not for him. The gratitude comes from the inclusion, that Wanda asks for his presence as a friend, that he may support her in this, where she was so silent and solitary in her previous observances at Yom Kippur. She considers him – 

He trips himself, here. He _is_ her friend. He trusted her from the first, because he was of Ultron, and Ultron trusted her, loved _her_ even when she set herself against him; Vision trusts her, because though she had been ready to destroy whatever emerged from the Cradle if it proved a danger to the world, she listened to _him_ , and made herself a friend instead. Wanda Maximoff cursed him and thanked him in the same breath for saving her life. Wanda Maximoff is delighted by the delicate curve of flower petals and the warm, heady scent of lotus tea. Wanda Maximoff talks to him about how preposterous _Bewitched_ is, and the ways the nearby Taconics and Shawagunks are not the Carpathians, and how cold it is to be only one, to feel alone.

He cannot recall, as himself, as _Vision_ , a world without her. She was there, by the Cradle. He knows this. He felt her presence like a physical thing in the dreams that were only partially his: a woman, wreathed in red, watching him with a kind of certainty, a kind of familiarity. She withdrew for a time, and he followed her towards consciousness, towards being.

When he thinks about her of late, having begun to pick through the _lliad_ and _Odyssey_ , on the recommendation of James Rhodes, he thinks this: _rosy-fingered dawn_.

He hopes she does not see that thought of his, though he has always returned her candor with his own. Not out of shame – he knows _shame_ from failure, from mistakes, from causing harm through his own lack of understanding; he feels shame when he has done wrong. Because he does not understand it to be either incorrect or harmful, he is not _ashamed_ of that thought.

(Wanda already knows he thinks highly of her, because she tells him she doesn’t understand why. There is no mirror in her room, but the television – on or off – reflects images of herself back: alone and distorted from the flat blackness; warped by the news which passes judgment on her past, her physical attributes, the accent which grows stronger as her stubbornness rises. By these metrics, she finds herself inadequate. And yet, from the second glimpse she took of his mind, Wanda Maximoff has been more sure he is human than she is of herself.)

This thought, this _image_ , of rosy-fingered dawn goes beyond what is merely respectful, or what constitutes his good opinion – he is not comparing Natasha Romanoff or James Rhodes to Eos, though he esteems both and is normally pleased to see them. When he is given the choice between whose company to seek, he has increasingly chosen Wanda’s.

As is now the case.

“You are losing on purpose,” she says, eyeing the hap-hazard position of his knight on the board, well aware she can trade a pawn for it without damaging her gambit. It is 12:43AM, more than two months into the new year. Wanda has been awake for thirty-seven minutes because of a nightmare, and they are playing to determine what to watch, or what to read.

“I am not.” 

He is lying, which she would know even if she was not a telepath, and he were not in the habit of being open to her, as though his mind was a room whose door was always ajar. He is lying. He is not very good at it, anyway, and she knows it from the cant of his smile and the way he can’t look her in the eye, even over such a small matter as this.

Wanda says his name, playfully, warningly. Her hands are hovering above the board, fingers spread wide while her black nail polish dries.

She takes his knight, he takes her pawn. “Perhaps I am testing a new strategy,” he replies.

“Perhaps you’re not as enthused about Opening Day at Yankee Stadium as Steve Rogers,” she says, gesturing at his part of the wager: _Baseball_ , The First Inning. Ken Burns. Vision understands how baseball is played and how important it is to their leader; he could look up its rules and history at his leisure, but spring was finally upon them, and – well. He had to actually learn _sometime_.

Perhaps not tonight: Wanda’s bet, a thick biography of Django Reinhardt, lies to the side of the DVD-box. All told, he had much rather read that. Wanda likes Reinhardt’s music, says her father _used to play it for us_ (always _us_ – Vision thinks back to what she said, months ago, about human life not ending with death, not really) because his own mother had heard Reinhardt play before and after the war. Continuity. Wanda’s life has been defined by those who and what she has lost, and Vision – 

Well. He likes seeing her happy, and when that is impossible, he finds himself extending the same consideration she has to him, with her cups of peppermint tea and commiseration. 

“I have been informed by Mr. Stark that baseball is ‘the game of nerds,’ therefore I believe baseball to be a suitable pastime for myself.”

Wanda laughs, shaking her head slowly. Vision reads _amusement_ , and considers the path of his remaining bishop.

“You would look ridiculous in one of those caps.”

“Likely.”

“That could be one of the conditions of losing,” she muses, “Stupid hats.”

He doesn’t think she’s capable of looking stupid. Vision kicks that thought under a mental rug, before she can notice it, where it can keep company with _rosy-fingered dawn_ – until he can piece it together. He has his suspicions. 

Instead, he says: “They are supposed to be practical, but we may make a wager about wearing one in the future?”

“You might not be so – so agreeable about chess, in the future.”

“We can play a different game.”

“Go?” 

“Checkers? Șeptică?” Inspiration strikes, and he tamps down a smile. “ _Go_ Fish?”

“Vizh,” she groans, “That’s terrible.”

It is, and he is pleased with himself for it. A pun may be the lowest form of humor, according to Dr. Johnson, but Vision nevertheless delights in them – a little thing, a simple delight like lavender or sunrise, or – 

His thoughts stutter to a halt. _What had she called him?_ “Vizh?” 

She looks startled: eyes wide, cocking her head in a familiar gesture, Wanda looks down and worries at the cuffs of her sweater. “A nickname? If you don’t like it, then I –”

“No, I do,” Vision replies, repeating the name to himself, “Thank you, Wanda. I like it very much.”

Wanda gives him a slow, relieved smile. He has no heart to leap into his throat, but – he is warm, _warmer_ than he should be, and he knows what he is feeling is more than the care he feels for his teammates, or gratitude for the easy certainty of his humanity she has given him without conditions or expectation of return. 

She is lovely. He thinks he might know what this is.

When he inevitably loses the game, Vision picks up the book gladly. Wanda lasts three pages before falling asleep in her chair, and he goes to fetch her quilt from her room. 

_Vizh_ , he thinks to himself, as though the name were another sweater to try. A nickname. Another thing he has collected, like the ‘Byte Me!’ mug, the Go stones and board Helen Cho had sent him for his half-birthday, the Klimt print from MoMA from Sam Wilson and Steven Rogers. Other things, intangible or transient: thick tobacco smoke under the stars, a conversation meant to console, peppermint tea, chess games, the rote memory of first through fifth positions. He likes all of this. He likes the proof that, however unusual or unsettling a beginning, he is – he has become a friend. Valued. _Equal_ – perhaps not in the sense of same, but worthy. Acknowledged. Welcomed. Wanted?

It is a start, Vision thinks. All of it means something. _Vizh._

**Author's Note:**

> Spot the insufferable _Master & Commander_ reference?
> 
> This started as a short drabble between Tony & Vision ... and kinda got out of hand.
> 
> The poem that Vision quotes from, when he thinks about flying & his new-found fear of falling is "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell, from 1945.
> 
> Lastly, I borrowed Sam Wilson's partner's widow, [Magdalene Ramirez](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271882), from the amazing & incomparable SpaceCaseWriter13, who put up with and endless series of questions, requests for proof-reading, and late-night/early-morning spitballing sessions, after I took the 300-word kernel of this fic out of mothballs. I wish this was a better repayment for your generosity of time, and sitting with me through at least two theater-screenings of _Infinity War_ back in 2018, friend.


End file.
